1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789999503321

Titolo

The insecure American [[electronic resource] ] : how we got here and what we should do about it / / edited by Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Besteman ; foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2010

ISBN

0-520-94508-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (387 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

GustersonHugh

BestemanCatherine Lowe

Disciplina

973.93

Soggetti

Security (Psychology) - United States

Nationalism - United States

United States Politics and government 21st century

United States Social conditions 21st century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. A Nation of Gated Communities -- 2. Warmaking as the American Way of Life -- 3. Republic of Fear The Rise of Punitive Governance in America -- 4. Neoliberalism, or The Bureaucratization of the World -- 5. The Age of Wal-Mart -- 6. Deindustrializing Chicago: A Daughter's Story -- 7. Racism, Risk, and the New Color of Dirty Jobs -- 8. Normal Insecurities, Healthy Insecurities -- 9. Cultivating Insecurity: How Marketers Are Commercializing Childhood -- 10. Uneasy Street -- 11. Body and Soul Profits from Poverty -- 12. Useless Suffering The War on Homeless Drug Addicts -- 13. Walling Out Immigrants -- 14. Compounding Insecurity: What the Neocon Core Reveals about America Today -- 15. Deploying Law as a Weapon in America's War on Terror -- 16. Death and Dying in Anxious America -- 17. Get Religion -- contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Americans are feeling insecure. They are retreating to gated communities in record numbers, fearing for their jobs and their 401(k)s, nervous about their health insurance and their debt levels, worrying about terrorist attacks and immigrants. In this innovative volume,



editors Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Besteman gather essays from nineteen leading ethnographers to create a unique portrait of an anxious country and to furnish valuable insights into the nation's possible future. With an incisive foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, the contributors draw on their deep knowledge of different facets of American life to map the impact of the new economy, the "war on terror," the "war on drugs," racial resentments, a fraying safety net, undocumented immigration, a health care system in crisis, and much more. In laying out a range of views on the forces that unsettle us, The Insecure American demonstrates the singular power of an anthropological perspective for grasping the impact of corporate profit on democratic life, charting the links between policy and vulnerability, and envisioning alternatives to life as an insecure American.